Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and the other “Left, Right & Center” panelists ask, in the context of the new jobs report, whether the U.S. has two economies. Also, Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio wants immigration reform and President Obama does also, so what will it take to get it passed?

When female writers disappeared from the Wikipedia heading “American novelists,” more than a few eyebrows were raised; Pvt. Bradley Manning being revoked as grand marshal of the San Francisco Gay Pride parade proves that the military-industrial complex rules all; meanwhile, another price-fixing scandal reminiscent of Libor is about to explode. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Seeking to clarify his “red line” position on the Syrian government’s possible use of chemical weapons, President Obama said Tuesday that he would consider a “range of options,” but he also urged patience.

Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and the other “Left, Right & Center” panelists discuss the White House’s belief that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. How should President Obama respond if such a red line has been crossed?

More than half of the population of Syria will likely need aid by the end of the year, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees has warned, adding that the civil crisis is the most serious the global body has ever dealt with.

Governments in the Middle East and across the world are exploiting the long chaos of Syria’s populist uprising to gain influence in the region. And Syrians—70,000 of whom have been killed in the conflict—are paying the price with their bodies and lives.

The foreign policy of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez imagined that socialism and anti-imperialism are the same thing, and that he could lead a new sort of socialist international. These considerations shaped his Middle East policy in ways that were contradictory and hypocritical.

Military interventions by powerful nations into lesser ones, such as now continues in Mali (and Afghanistan), and is being urged by many into the Syrian civil war, are inherently reckless since even the most powerful states can have the whole project blow up on them.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Egypt took a turn for the diplomatically dicey in Cairo on Tuesday when an angry man who apparently hailed from Syria chose to express his displeasure with Ahmadinejad’s support of the Syrian regime by lobbing a shoe at the Iranian leader.

You know you’re on shaky ground when you quote a source like the defense secretary with the words, “He basically said. ...” FAIR’s Peter Hart compares ABC’s lazy quoting on Syrian chemical weapons to the kind of WMD fear mongering that led the U.S. to war with Iraq.

More than 80 people were killed in two blasts that struck the University of Aleppo in northern Syria on the first day of exams. The bombs exploded between a residence hall and an architecture facility.

The 2-year-old conflict between the Syrian government and its opposition that has killed 40,000 civilians and threatens to destabilize the Middle East was escalated in recent days when forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad fired Soviet-era Scud missiles at rebel fighters, American officials said Wednesday.